I would totally disagree with you actually Minecraft is a gem because you CAN build what you want, you can install mods, and start building things you never knew you wanted. You can spend 5000 hours to build the most intricate castle ever designed with a behind the scenes in-game logic system running moving walls and randomly moving enemy spawners or just a nice looking tree house. Same although much more dumbed down for Starbound and Terraria. All these are games where you can substantially shape the worlds. Though these 2 are totally inferior to Minecraft. There is also FortressCraft Evolved, which I didn't play since it's "Evolved" moniker so yeah, but I would think that ranks 2nd to Minecraft

Ah, but NMS is not the same genre as Minecraft. I use Minecraft (and the other two) as examples simply for that analogy. NMS, as I keep telling people, is a survival-genre game. Minecraft... you can call it the same thing, but to me it's more like the entire genre is sliced in half. You have games like Minecraft on one side, with the survival elements and the building, and then on the other side, those games have those elements WITHOUT the building. You're not meant, in those game, to "shape" anything at all. Your only goal is not to get overwhelmed and destroyed (or whatever) by the world you're in. A good example, actually, is Dwarf Fortress's adventure mode. Same idea, all these infinite places to explore, things to do.... but you cant SHAPE a thing. Nothing at all. The only thing you can "build" is a rather crappy fire that never actually accomplishes anything aside from throwing smoke around that every other character can see right through. The whole "don't screw up" element is still there, and 95% of your time in that mode will be spent wandering, only small amounts of it involve actual action. That type of game tends to be like that.

This is all separate from anything resembling narrative, though.

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NMS is nothing of that. It is not a builder game, it is not a sim. It is a... very fancy... walking simulator. The more you abstract the gameplay concepts the more you will see it. There is no element in NMS that is interconnected, races just exist, animals just spawn/unspawn, so do resources and sentinels, bases on planets, planets and entire systems. If you aren't there and don't intend to go back then they might as well not even exist.. because to the game, they are just background images.

So imo NMS is a pretty walking simulator. But it isn't a good game. Not even a finished game, actually. If it had been designed for the "exploration" crowd then it would not have so little to actually +see+ ;p

This bit doesn't make sense to me, considering the earlier Minecraft bit. Minecraft.... has less "interconnection" than any other game on this list (this being part of why I like it), and WAY less than NMS. No story, no characters, nothing cemented. Even the game's closest things to other "characters", the Villagers, are utterly blank slates. You could replace them with jpeg images of a cactus and nothing would actually change. Everything you say about NMS in that part there can (and does) apply to Minecraft as well in the exact same way. Except more. NMS characters at least speak, and there are some named ones with importance to the lore. Minecraft.... has none of that. Just "Steve", and even that's just the fan-given name to the main character, who is just as replacable as the aforementioned walking cacti. ALL of these characters and mobs in Minecraft have literally no function or purpose whatsoever unless A: you walk up to them and interact with them, usually by smashing them with something, or B: they are a monster and attack you. There are three, and ONLY three, exceptions to this: 1, Wolves will attack certain animals 2, zombies will attack villagers 3, Guardians will attack squids. Other than this, the world has no autonomous interactions. You either do something with a mob or object, or it may as well not be there, really.

The only actual "core" element to Minecraft is the Enderdragon, because it's connected to the "ending". But even that is just a random thing, a dragon, smashed into an arbitrary "boss" slot that needed filling, just.... because Notch wanted a boss in the game. The other 2 bosses, the Wither and the Elder Guardians, are equally random, having zero connection to anything, and the same non-existent lore as absolutely every other thing. I mean, a three-headed, charred, flying skeleton, and some spiky eyeballs with deathrays... much as I like Minecraft, even I thought these might be a bit TOO random (particularly the Wither more than anything else). The Wither in particular may as well not exist, as nobody ever bothers dealing with it. That though is a whole other rant from me, about THAT thing and it's stupid Beacon.

If there's something else you mean here, I kinda suspect it's one of those meanings I'm not actually capable of understanding. For example I haven't the foggiest clue what "abstract the gameplay" means. That one just bounces off me, really. May as well be quantum physics.

I still don't get the "walking simulator" bit either, which I've heard from a few others as well (all who, coincidentally, haven't played it themselves). I've been playing this game in the *exact* same way I play Minecraft; moving from one task to the next either A: as goals present themselves to me, which then often lead to other choices/goals, or B: because I randomly feel like it, so long as "it" is something that will accomplish a thing for me. As with Minecraft I'm not very patient and I don't like doing the same thing for long periods of time. In Minecraft, I'll start out mining, for instance.... and then 5 minutes into that digging will decide "that's enough coal", even if it's not, and go randomly towards some shiny thing that I may or may not have spotted during that process. Which then leads to other things, that lead to more things, and none of these take up much time individually, yet at the same time I never go after anything unless I think it'll serve some function for me. NMS is like that; if it were just endless walking with nothing to DO, I wouldn't be playing it, since I cant focus in that way. If I'm on a particular planet, I'm not there just to walk around; don't get me wrong, the scenery is bloody fascinating. But I always have some THING I want, some goal in mind. None of which are decided by the narrative (whatever there is of it, I haven't been following it very well), but all of which are decided based on whatever I think is a good idea at the time. Maybe I'm after a particular tech for dealing with pirates (which get more and more frequent), or maybe I'm after certain suit upgrades, or a new ship. I have specific sequences of tasks & events that I'll do to lead me to any one of these, all of which can branch out into other possibilities that I may or may not do, if they seem like they'll get me some useful thing. In other words, movement with actual purpose/function. I'm not too fond of the idea of going places without a reason, never have been. The "reason" being practical things, mind you. If the reason is "story" I don't bother.

I mean that quite literally, to abstract the gameplay means to reduce it to its most basic actions and motivations for those actions.

The reason for my impression as a walking simulator is really quite simple. Take Minecraft I find the fact that I can shape the world has a huge impact on my enjoyment of these games. To explain, when in Minecraft I build a tunnel through a mountain, and I come back 30 (real) days later it will still be there in that save, and it will still be a tunnel I made. This has imo a nice motivation behind it, even if the "end" of minecraft might exist, the mere act of "getting" to where the good ressources are requires you to at least have some construction going, and things expand from there. Minecraft is the perfect game for 3d artists.. nothing ever stays a simple wooden hut ;P

Now back to NMS, the reason I see it as a walking simulator (admittedly, from videos) is that to me there seems nothing there aside from looking and occasionally shooting at things. The world has no connection with you (the player) unlike in Minecraft, when I dig into an water cave and flood half my "base", that is the very definition of "fun" aka DF style fun. When I accidentally dig upwards and lava floods in, the solution to that problem might create unique creations and ideas. And when I die, then I drop my entire inventory.. that is a pretty big danger to face late game and requires you to plan ahead, set spawn point, set equipment aside, and have resources stored nicely. My point is, minecraft is the total exploration/construction sandbox focused game. it perfects the abstracted gameplay, the basic action (dawdling around) with motivation (surviving, growing base, building better stuff). For a survival game, there also needs to be a real threat of death. In NMS, there is no (substantial) penalty to dying so I don't perceive it as a survival game.

And also, I find that there are no real threats in NMS, although to be fair, that may just have been the "mid game" streamer I was watching. There were "elite combat" robots or some such, which did a ton of damage after streamer grabbed a few of those ! marked ressources, then he found a cave with 30 of them (the resources) and.. the bots didn't spawn there and eventually he just dug a hole out of the cave with grenades and walked away with 20 30k worth things. Like.. yeah... survival? Nah.

I dunno, maybe it is really only the perception one gets from streams... but to me, NMS looks like an incredibly.. repetitive, grindy... walking simulator.. with really bad art work at that. The animals you discover (Swimming/Flying/walking) all look incredibly alike after just a few planets, and the planets, a few special plants aside, all look "samey" and worst of all, when I see NMS being played, and I see those creatures and ships.. I think of Spore. The ships and aliens especially look horrendous imo. It has this "cartoony" muddy feel to it and this is an art style I absolutely hate.. I want crisp textures, reflections, and diversity.

In all my watching streams in NMS, I never seen a truly dangerous alien species... no hive mind, no berserkers. From a pure Sci-fi fan perspective, I think this world in NMS is about as bland as you could design a scifi setting if you tried really hard to make the "most blandest scifi ever"

I mean, this atlas AI thing, is a red wobbly sphere thing... yay? Where is the inspiration? Where the creativity? I come at this looking as someone who read Ender's Game and the following.... I .. just think.. this vision, this art this style in NMS, makes it look so.. immature.. so childish.. oh well ;p It's hard to put that into words, but I really can not imagine me having any fun in that game. It would be interesting to explore the game mechanics I guess, but I'd be dead bored after planet 3, unless there is a "super hardcore" difficulty setting the streamers all didn't check ;p

Basically, make this game set in Warhammer universe, and you'd have a winner. May not be procedural (though the planets could be) but at least you'd have some conflict.

Ps.: And finally, I also want to say that to me, NMS sits next to X games from Egosoft, in those you also never had a threat that could change the global situation in the galaxy. It made playing the game incredibly bland after you achieved a super mega factory.. or 36.. *cough* anyway, I just think if it were really a survival game, then it would need to be like AI War, the *threat* of total doom must linger over you, or it ain't survival, it's just a (from looking at it on stream) very grindy mostly random gallery you explore. The streamer I watched explored an entire planet and was left totally disappointed, most of the species were just slight variations. You could discern a few phenotypes.. but all in all, visually the game has not enough diversity where it matters, with light and animals, with ships and aliens. With environments...

Mhhh, anyway ;P

« Last Edit: August 14, 2016, 12:32:40 PM by eRe4s3r »

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I mean that quite literally, to abstract the gameplay means to reduce it to its most basic actions and motivations for those actions.

The reason for my impression as a walking simulator is really quite simple. Take Minecraft I find the fact that I can shape the world has a huge impact on my enjoyment of these games. To explain, when in Minecraft I build a tunnel through a mountain, and I come back 30 (real) days later it will still be there in that save, and it will still be a tunnel I made. This has imo a nice motivation behind it, even if the "end" of minecraft might exist, the mere act of "getting" to where the good ressources are requires you to at least have some construction going, and things expand from there. Minecraft is the perfect game for 3d artists.. nothing ever stays a simple wooden hut ;P

Now back to NMS, the reason I see it as a walking simulator (admittedly, from videos) is that to me there seems nothing there aside from looking and occasionally shooting at things. The world has no connection with you (the player) unlike in Minecraft, when I dig into an water cave and flood half my "base", that is the very definition of "fun" aka DF style fun. When I accidentally dig upwards and lava floods in, the solution to that problem might create unique creations and ideas. And when I die, then I drop my entire inventory.. that is a pretty big danger to face late game and requires you to plan ahead, set spawn point, set equipment aside, and have resources stored nicely. My point is, minecraft is the total exploration/construction sandbox focused game. it perfects the abstracted gameplay, the basic action (dawdling around) with motivation (surviving, growing base, building better stuff). For a survival game, there also needs to be a real threat of death. In NMS, there is no (substantial) penalty to dying so I don't perceive it as a survival game.

And also, I find that there are no real threats in NMS, although to be fair, that may just have been the "mid game" streamer I was watching. There were "elite combat" robots or some such, which did a ton of damage after streamer grabbed a few of those ! marked ressources, then he found a cave with 30 of them (the resources) and.. the bots didn't spawn there and eventually he just dug a hole out of the cave with grenades and walked away with 20 30k worth things. Like.. yeah... survival? Nah.

I dunno, maybe it is really only the perception one gets from streams... but to me, NMS looks like an incredibly.. repetitive, grindy... walking simulator.. with really bad art work at that. The animals you discover (Swimming/Flying/walking) all look incredibly alike after just a few planets, and the planets, a few special plants aside, all look "samey" and worst of all, when I see NMS being played, and I see those creatures and ships.. I think of Spore. The ships and aliens especially look horrendous imo. It has this "cartoony" muddy feel to it and this is an art style I absolutely hate.. I want crisp textures, reflections, and diversity.

In all my watching streams in NMS, I never seen a truly dangerous alien species... no hive mind, no berserkers. From a pure Sci-fi fan perspective, I think this world in NMS is about as bland as you could design a scifi setting if you tried really hard to make the "most blandest scifi ever"

I mean, this atlas AI thing, is a red wobbly sphere thing... yay? Where is the inspiration? Where the creativity? I come at this looking as someone who read Ender's Game and the following.... I .. just think.. this vision, this art this style in NMS, makes it look so.. immature.. so childish.. oh well ;p It's hard to put that into words, but I really can not imagine me having any fun in that game. It would be interesting to explore the game mechanics I guess, but I'd be dead bored after planet 3, unless there is a "super hardcore" difficulty setting the streamers all didn't check ;p

Basically, make this game set in Warhammer universe, and you'd have a winner. May not be procedural (though the planets could be) but at least you'd have some conflict.

Ps.: And finally, I also want to say that to me, NMS sits next to X games from Egosoft, in those you also never had a threat that could change the global situation in the galaxy. It made playing the game incredibly bland after you achieved a super mega factory.. or 36.. *cough* anyway, I just think if it were really a survival game, then it would need to be like AI War, the *threat* of total doom must linger over you, or it ain't survival, it's just a (from looking at it on stream) very grindy mostly random gallery you explore. The streamer I watched explored an entire planet and was left totally disappointed, most of the species were just slight variations. You could discern a few phenotypes.. but all in all, visually the game has not enough diversity where it matters, with light and animals, with ships and aliens. With environments...

Mhhh, anyway ;P

.....actually, NMS's death penalty is exactly the same as that of Minecraft, so.... still not entirely making sense to me, to be honest, particularly the complaints about the game's difficulty or lack thereof. In Minecraft when you die, you drop your stuff. In NMS when you die, you drop your stuff. Unless you die in space, which is.... a lot worse. Where'd you get this idea that nothing happens? And yeah, you can say things like "there's not anything truly dangerous" in the game, but that ends up being more about the player, not about the game, the same as it is in Minecraft. If I'm playing Minecraft myself, there's nothing dangerous in the game. Nothing. It doesn't matter what it is, it poses no threat to me, and I don't exactly need diamond (or even iron) level equipment for 95% of it. Monsters, the game's bosses, lava, threat of falling.... nah. Even on Hard, Minecraft is too easy. The game just isn't very hard, at all, as this is the case for most people I know; it doesn't exactly take some amazing level of skill, it's not like a bullet-hell game. It's not that it doesn't have things that can damage the player, it's that none of them are very dangerous, even in hordes. NMS is exactly the same way, with a very similar level of low difficulty (I would, very honestly, say that the difficulty level is almost exactly the same). It has plenty of things that can kill you. But like Minecraft, its just not going to throw them at you very hard since that's not the point, really. The only game I can think of that DOES fling stuff at you pretty hard is Terraria, played on Expert. Starbound doesn't do it either, nor does any other that I've played. They all have this same type of non-threatening threats, I guess you could say. In Minecraft, I haven't encountered any real threat, danger, or DF-style "fun" probably since.... before Alpha. In other words, it's been years. Unless I'm using mods, which absolutely don't count (if you need mods in order for a particular game function to work, that function is DEFINITELY broken). And if I'm using mods, chances are I'm going *really* far with them (teleporting Ender creepers that fling fireballs that cause lightning and have the ability to summon spider webs all over the place and have 7x the HP and are always charged, that sort of thing, heh) which also kinda says what I think about the game's actual "difficulty". But as I said above, that's more about the player, not about the game. I know someone that plays Minecraft and just gets splattered by things over and over, despite it being super easy. This entertains me to no end. I admit getting enjoyment out of pointing out some easy way he could have avoided or prevented each death. He doesn't enjoy it as much.

That being said, I absolutely understand the bit about lacking interest when you aren't able to shape the world and such. In some games, that bugs me, in others, it doesn't, which I suppose is kinda odd. Sorta bugs me in DF Adventure Mode, to be honest, though that might be because the main game mode is STUFFED with that idea.

As for the game's universe or whatever being bland.... that's all honestly above my head. I'll notice the visuals in a game like this, but anything else, such as running themes behind it all or the story stuff or whatever.... yeah, that's a conversation for someone else to have, heh. My entire understanding of that aspect of this game is "there's a red ball somewhere", which is even smaller than my understanding of R-Type's storyline. So I don't actually have any thoughts on that part, and likely never will, as that's likely to still remain my level of understanding even if I hit the end of the game.

As for the artstyle, that's always subjective of course. I can see why some wont like it. For me, I like it well enough, particularly since it's not realistic (I hate realism, to be totally honest, and would rather have Minecraft's bizarre blocky abstraction, or things like that) and since there's some damn color. I cant even overstate how important it is that games have some freaking color even if the color has to be splattered in places that make no sense. But that's another rant, for another day....

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To me, NMS seems like an amalgamation of Elite: Dangerous, Terraria and EVE Online with all the work, grind and annoyances and none of the fun.

That's pretty much how I've always thought of.... Well, EVE Online, to be honest. Not the other two.

Every now and then someone I know will point out that they love that game.

Every single time I ask them to explain why.

Every single time I go away from it understanding less than before about the appeal, and also with an urge to hit them with a chair. That game seems like Disgaea's grinding, except literally made into an entire game. Hell, people pull up videos on other screens to watch while they "play" it, like, during the travel sequences. I just.... it.... ugh. I don't understand that one. Never will. That the game is even still around utterly baffles me. Usually with a lot of games I can say "Yeah, I don't like this one, but I guess I can see why others do". That one's the exception.

Yeah hehe, EVE is one of these things I don't get either... thing is though, everyone I see calls NMS a survival game. And it really isn't one. It has no challenge, no fail state, if you die you only lose resources, not upgrades/items or even ships. But on the other hand it has this dull refill grind that is about as much fun as.. well, no, it doesn't seem fun ;p

Although to be fair, I knew I (probably) wouldn't enjoy this game so I didn't put any money on the table... from the earliest trailers I already realized they are really showing everything that the game *IS* .. I am just surprised that the game in streams I watched, actually seems to be far more "mining and waiting" and far less exploration and combat.

And the final nail is imo always procedural generation. Haven't seen a single game where that added ANYTHING to my enjoyment, more than that, often proc gen adds floating geometry, meshes and glitchy physics. If the gameplay is solid, basic random map gen.. sure, why not. But procedural surfaces that have zero impact on gameplay or anything? What is the point? I take KSP style hand crafted badly textured wastelands over procedural generated wastelands any day. (they run much better ,p) as the engine in NMS can't seem to handle foliage whatsoever which I guess is why most planets look like nuclear wastelands. On stream I watched FPS tanked to the 20's on a densely populated world. 20.. for graphics that look worse than Far Cry.. like, the original one.

And this has technical reasons I guess.... so this where I end up thinking this is a indy proof of concept. What it definitely is not is a AAA game. It costs 67$ on steam for me. They must be certifiably insane...

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Although to be fair, I knew I (probably) wouldn't enjoy this game so I didn't put any money on the table... from the earliest trailers I already realized they are really showing everything that the game *IS* .. I am just surprised that the game in streams I watched, actually seems to be far more "mining and waiting" and far less exploration and combat.

I'm beginning to wonder just who it is you're watching play this, if that's the case. Something tells me they don't entirely know what they're doing.

I mine something in this, and it takes me like 2 seconds, if that. The hardest things to mine in the game (as objects go) are rock-ish things that give a lot of iron, they take 5 billion years to bring down with the mining laser. ....so I throw a grenade at them. BAMF, instant iron, no loss of it either. It's one of those things where I see people NOT doing this and I'm like "Why... why cant you see the obvious solution here?" Granted, to be fair, this is what I expect from streamers in most cases (and this is why I stopped watching Twitch like, a year ago, I eventually just couldn't handle any more stupid, I'd reached my breaking point), and many Youtubers, but still, it's painful to watch when I see someone doing stuff like that (or should I say, NOT doing stuff) in any particular game. I mean, seriously, mining stuff in this game takes me less than half the time it does to do basic amounts of mining in Minecraft; and that's for the "resource lumps", not small objects, which are pretty much instant as long as you're not trying to mine them by screaming at them.

The FPS bit, I'm just going to take a wild guess and say that's the PC version. I have no comments on that; I'm playing the PS4 version, which works fine. I'm rather glad I didn't wait for the PC version. At least the blasted PS4 has a function now other than being a dust collection machine. Sometimes I wonder why I bought the idiotic thing.

As for procedural generation, THAT one I heavily disagree with. I'll be honest, I've almost completely stopped playing "hand crafted" games at this point (other than shmups). I've just.... lost interest entirely. The last one I bought was Doom, and the last one before that was.... er.... something. Goat Simulator? It might actually be Goat Simulator. Which quite frankly I enjoy way more than most AAA games, but that's another rant. Hell, I enjoy old Atari 2600 games or those LCD things a lot more than most AAA modern games (Doom and Overwatch being the only exceptions). I wish I was joking.

But yeah, I mean heck, we're at the Arcen forums here, and basically ALL of their games use procedural generation, with the exception of Shattered Haven.

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What it definitely is not is a AAA game

And boy am I thankful for that. It means I don't have to perform an exorcism.

To be honest, throwing a grenade at a rock to get iron is not a solution I would get either. More so if the game does not tell you that this would work.

These games usually don't tell you these things. .....Or it might be in the description of the grenade thing actually, I'm not entirely sure.

But really, the logic seems obvious to me. One thing isn't doing the job fast enough? HIT IT HARDER. Or if you're in Minecraft, pump it full of magic, that works too. Cant go wrong with enchanted diamond.

The game DOES make it fairly obvious, though, that the grenades are capable of terrain deformation and are stronger than the mining laser (which cant destroy normal rock).

Beyond that though, it does sort of bug me that people cant even experiment enough to figure this one out, logic or no logic. All you have to do is hit one button without even changing your aim.... I dunno. I spot stuff like this in games quickly and it tends to irritate me that others often don't.

Beyond that though, it does sort of bug me that people cant even experiment enough to figure this one out, logic or no logic. All you have to do is hit one button without even changing your aim.... I dunno. I spot stuff like this in games quickly and it tends to irritate me that others often don't.

Are grenades rare and/or precious? Or maybe it's just the good old "save it for later" syndrome in action.

My guess would be simply, it's a weapon (if it's really called grenade) so people don't test it on terrain. Or ore. Or whatever you can farm in this game.Plus what logorogue said, if its a rare item, people pretty much won't waste it on ore.

Also in my opinion this shouldn't be the better option. The common knowledge is, grenades are weapons and should function that way. if they can mine ore, good, but they should NEVER be better than the intended main tool for that purpose. In NMS seemingly the mining laser. This thing is only there for mining, if there is something better for it, why use it at all? What rigth has it to exist if there is a better option that can be also uttilized as weapon? That's a bad game design. Grenades can be usable on rocks but shouldn't simply be the better option because people will then abuse it like you do it. That's a bad game design and NOT the fault of the customers not noticing this flaw (using grenades for minign an dspeeding up the process).There can be of course an explosive for mining, like TNT in Minecraft, but it should be rare to aquire, like TNT in Minecraft.

My guess would be simply, it's a weapon (if it's really called grenade) so people don't test it on terrain. Or ore. Or whatever you can farm in this game.Plus what logorogue said, if its a rare item, people pretty much won't waste it on ore.

Also in my opinion this shouldn't be the better option. The common knowledge is, grenades are weapons and should function that way. if they can mine ore, good, but they should NEVER be better than the intended main tool for that purpose. In NMS seemingly the mining laser. This thing is only there for mining, if there is something better for it, why use it at all? What rigth has it to exist if there is a better option that can be also uttilized as weapon? That's a bad game design. Grenades can be usable on rocks but shouldn't simply be the better option because people will then abuse it like you do it. That's a bad game design and NOT the fault of the customers not noticing this flaw (using grenades for minign an dspeeding up the process).There can be of course an explosive for mining, like TNT in Minecraft, but it should be rare to aquire, like TNT in Minecraft.

They're just the alternate fire of the mining gun, actually (can be fired either in beam or boltcaster mode). They are like any other tech thing in the game; keep 'em fed, and you need not run out. They take isotopes to power (like many things) or certain items can be used.

It turns out that the game DOES actually tell you "yes, these blow up terrain and objects quickly" and all of that. There are techs meant to enhance the abilities of the thing to do exactly that, but it starts out doing a pretty good job of it).

Also, they don't work like normal grenades; I just call them that. They're silver spheres that simply explode on impact with anything. They're not something you throw with careful timing, and the gun holds a "clip" of 6 of them that then reloads after that.

The way it's balanced though, using JUST those for digging is idiotic; you'll drain your gun too fast. Way too fast. The drain from those is pretty extreme compared to the laser. You cant actually abuse them in that way unless you want to basically be feeding the thing all of the resources you're using them to dig up. These are meant to be used on very hard objects (of which there are only a few types) and other than that, use the mining laser on everything else. They're not good on resource lumps and pointless on crystals or plants (you'll just drain the hell out of your gun if you do that, dumb idea). In other words, like any other game with digging involved: use the right tool for the right job. Which I suppose is part of why this seemed so obvious to me. I use them specifically on objects that count as iron deposits (big rocks) or the various rare bizarre things that hold the ultra-rare materials like Radnox and such. Carbon sources, crystals, and most metals are dug up with the laser. Zinc/platinum/thamium must be collected and cannot be dug up by anything.

To me, NMS seems like an amalgamation of Elite: Dangerous, Terraria and EVE Online with all the work, grind and annoyances and none of the fun.

That's pretty much how I've always thought of.... Well, EVE Online, to be honest. Not the other two.

Every now and then someone I know will point out that they love that game.

Every single time I ask them to explain why.

Every single time I go away from it understanding less than before about the appeal, and also with an urge to hit them with a chair. That game seems like Disgaea's grinding, except literally made into an entire game. Hell, people pull up videos on other screens to watch while they "play" it, like, during the travel sequences. I just.... it.... ugh. I don't understand that one. Never will. That the game is even still around utterly baffles me. Usually with a lot of games I can say "Yeah, I don't like this one, but I guess I can see why others do". That one's the exception.

EVE is 95% politics and about 5% "make your own empire". That's what's fun about EVE to me. PvP is rather exhilarating too when it's small scale. The huge fleet battles are impressive, but pretty bland to be a part of. It's the politics leading up to the battles that is awesome. Right now though I'm just trading (which is PvP in and of itself) and building ships. Because the crafting system in EVE is actually fun compared to most.

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